What’s the deal with power outages?

Power outages have become a normal part of life for more and more of us. What's the deal?

😰🔌 The utility grid is stressed. Our old grid's getting thrown new challenges it wasn't designed for: intense storms + rapid electrification.

🪫🙁 Outages have become more pervasive than you might think. Since 2018, 2/3 of utility customers lost power long enough for food to spoil (4+ hrs), and 1/3 have suffered an 8+ hr outage.

⛈️💸 Why? Bad weather. Billion-dollar weather disasters have ticked up steadily over the last 20 years. 2023 topped the charts.

🌎👈 Who's getting it the worst? Mother Nature is spreading the love:

• 🌊 Hurricane Alley: FL, LA, and NC have suffered the most total outage hours in recent years. Big storms = mass outages with long power recovery times.
• 🌨️ Northeast: Winter winds and snow means Maine in particular sees more frequent outages than any other state.
• 🔥 West Coast: Nearly a quarter of all outages in 2022 occurred in California.
• 🌬️ Midwest: Per capita Michigan has more outages than any other state. The 2020 derecho left nearly 2 million without power across Iowa and neighboring states.
• ☀️ Hate outages? Your best bet is moving to AZ, WY, or UT — the only states where >95% of customers have avoided long outages in the past 5 years. Lucky them!

🌅 🚀 The upshot: Smart people are working to improve things. America built the first power grid and invented the utility business model. We now have the most to gain from grid innovation.

🏃💨 ...But we have to move faster. We need drastically better access to backup power solutions. We need solutions that work for every American home, not just single-family homes. Most importantly, we need solutions that can be deployed quickly without annoying red tape and ballooning soft costs.

Is your family ready for outage season? ready.gov/power-outages

Considering a whole-home battery? My advice:

• 1: Find a solar contractor who's been installing batteries in your area for a few years at least. Trust their input.
• 2: Know what you're getting into — It's going to be a big project! Consider bundling other upgrade work, and do it all at the same time or you'll pay twice! (https://lnkd.in/gprzC4hQ)
• 3: Which battery should you get? Powerwall 3 (I'm biased)